


New Camelot

by Jellyfax



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Arthur-centric, BAMF Merlin (Merlin), Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Internalized Biphobia, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Murder Mystery, POV Arthur, Plot Rich, Police Procedural, Police corruption, Private Investigators, Secret Identity, Slow Burn, plot heavy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-13 05:34:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19244851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jellyfax/pseuds/Jellyfax
Summary: Arthur King, Scotland Yard's youngest newly-minted Detective Inspector, had been expecting more pressure in his new position, a higher workload and longer hours came as standard. What he hadn't been expecting was to be thrust into the world of London's clandestine magical underbelly, a hive of strangeness hidden in plain sight, known to those who inhabited it as "New Camelot". Guided by a mysterious and enigmatic young warlock who certainly knows more than he lets on, Arthur must navigate his new position, a series of bizarre murders, and the tangled threads of a past he'd all but forgotten.





	New Camelot

**Author's Note:**

> This started as a birthday present for the lovely Anna about 4 years ago, but it's been on the back burner since then. It also started off as a very small idea but it's grown exponentially since then (see: me messaging Megan to ask if 30 pages was too much for a first chapter...) and it's still growing. I have the whole story planned out now, and several chapters written up, but it's very much a work in progress, so please bear with me while I write this, TDAMP, and my Masters thesis...
> 
> Some parts may seem a little OOC, for which I can only apologise, and hope that it adds to the worldbuilding if nothing else. This is mostly rated M for Murder, but there are some sexual themes from the get-go (tags will be added as the chapters update), and minor character deaths. 
> 
> CW: This story involves cops, often portrayed in a positive light because of how the story unfolds, but police corruption and the flaws in the system are very much a running theme.

Detective Inspector Arthur King sipped his lukewarm coffee bitterly. He’d microwaved it three times, but every time it was cool enough to drink, someone managed to find something for him to do. When he’d got promoted Arthur had been sure that it would mean more fieldwork, instead all he got was more paperwork and more red tape. He sighed and leafed through another file. He’d been put on a case that had him stumped. First case as D.I. and he had no idea where to start. Four victims, all men aged eighteen to thirty, had been found stabbed in their homes. No sign of forced entry, no sign of a struggle, just dead, as though they’d just had the knife placed in their chests, and died perfectly calmly. That wasn’t even the strangest part. The part that made Arthur shudder every time he opened the case files, his skin puckering with an unnatural chill, his heart fluttering in his chest like a frightened bird - something that certainly didn't help his already worryingly meagre reputation as a homicide detective - was that every one of the men had been covered, head to toe, in cobwebs.

“Sir?”

Arthur looked up from the file, his heart slowing as his eyes moved from the haunting pictures, and turned around to see D.S. Smith standing behind him, her dark curls tied back in a high ponytail, a look of mild concern marring her usually delightful features.

“Gwen?”

She chewed her lip and looked almost apologetic. “They’ve found another one.”

Arthur sighed heavily and put down his disappointing coffee, grabbing his jacket from the back of the chair before following dutifully after D.S. Smith.

"Where did they find him this time?"

"Barnsbury, a flat on Bingfield Street."

Arthur winced. That was D.I. Tristan Hadleigh's turf, and the man hated his guts. Islington and Hackney police departments were supposed to work closely together, but that was rarely the case when Arthur was paired with Tristan. Gwen knew as much and gave him a warning look.

"I won't start anything if he doesn't." He said, feigning as much innocence as he could manage.

"The two of you have egos to outshine the sun, and your arrogance around him knows no bounds."

Arthur felt the colour rise in his cheeks as he tried to fluster out a response. "Gwen! I'm still your superior. You can't talk to me like that!"

Looking only slightly admonished, Gwen raised a slender brow. "You've only been my superior for a month, and I'll start treating you like my superior when you start acting like it." Pausing for a moment she lay a hand on his arm. "You're a great detective, and Hadleigh knows it, but you've got to stop taking everything he says to heart."

Arthur took a deep breath and nodded. "I'll try my best."

Gwen's smile was like sunshine. "That's all we can ask for. Now, we don't know anything much about the victim, except that the M.O. matches the previous four: knife wound and cobwebs, the whole lot."

Arthur nodded. "Sounds like we need to check it out."

***

Islington, like many parts of London, was a mix-bag. There were plenty of old Victorian townhouses you'd pay an arm and a leg to live in - their pale bricks and large wood-framed windows reminiscent of more affluent times - stood quite literally across the road from stout, post-war, red-brick housing blocks that Arthur might have said had seen better days if he wasn't painfully aware that they hadn't seen a good day in their entire existence. Bingfield Street was more of the latter, the inhabitants rubbernecking from their squat doorways, flicking cigarette ash onto the cracked flagstones at their feet. From the approach Arthur could see a man, taller than he was by less than a head, with a scruffy beard and a weathered tan trench-coat that made him look like something out of a 70's crime novella.

Arthur sighed wearily and glanced at Gwen. Even in the unflatteringly intermittent blue light, she was exceptionally beautiful. She looked back up at him, her grim expression softening slightly to something admonishing and fond. "Watch your tone with him, sir." Her use of his title gently mocking. "This is his turf, after all. He has every right to be irritable."

Arthur snorted. "When is he not irritable."

Tristan Hadleigh was, for want of a better word, Arthur's nemesis. When he had first met the D.I. he had been dismissive, acutely aware of who Arthur was, or more accurately, who his father was. Any crime that required both neighbouring police forces to work together had been all but shy of a full-blown dog-fight. Tristan outranked Arthur both in seniority and experience, but Arthur was damn good at his job, and often caught details that Tristan had missed, much to his chagrin. Then, when news spread of Arthur's own promotion to D.I., after only four years as D.S., Tristan had all but cried nepotism from the rooftops - which Arthur quietly thought was hypocritical given that Hadleigh himself was married to his own D.S., who had only been transferred to C.I.D. at his request - and made it his life's work to dismantle and undermine any and all joint efforts between Hackney and Islington.

Gwen cleared her throat as they reached the nearest line of police tape. Tristan's eyes narrowed as he looked across at them.

"King." He said, sharply.

Arthur braced himself. "Hadleigh."

He pursed his lips with undisguised distaste. "Of course, it's you. Fancy telling me what your lot are doing trampling all over my crime scene?"

"We've got an alert for this M.O. Knife wound to the chest, no sign of a struggle, not even a sign of breaking and entering." Gwen said, her voice clear and professional. How she managed it, Arthur would never know.

Tristan sneered down his crooked nose, attention still fixed on Arthur. "That's not uncommon, you know. Most victims know their attackers, particularly if it happens in their own homes."

Arthur nodded. "Which is why the alert only pinged when you reported the cobwebs."

For the first time since Arthur's arrival, Tristan's belligerent veneer cracked. "Cobwebs?"

"That is what you found him covered in, yes?" Arthur replied, a sense of smug satisfaction slipping into his tone. "The knife in his chest, and the rest of him covered in cobwebs - real ones, too."

Scrubbing a hand over his sparse beard, Tristan sighed. "Yeah. Yeah, we did. Your guys seen this before then?"

"Had the first a couple of weeks back. Male, 30 years old, killed in his flat on Pollard Street sometime between 11pm and 2am. He seemed peaceful, like he was sleeping, but the autopsy report said cause of death was the knife wound to his chest." D.I. Hadleigh nodded slowly. "We’ve had another three since then, all identical circumstances. We collected samples of the cobwebs at all four scenes, and labs came back indicating that it was perfectly organic spider's silk."

Shoulders sinking with defeat, he gestured to the house with a sharp nod of his head. "Okay, but I'm going in there with you, you know."

Arthur's smile was a small thing that he hid with a polite duck of his head. "I wouldn't expect any less."

With Tristan's permission, he and Gwen ducked under the police tape and headed inside.

The flat itself was nothing Arthur hadn't seen a thousand times before. The floors were a cheap, faux-pine laminate - easy to clean and easy to replace - and the walls were all a bland magnolia, adorned in places with Wilko's finest glitter-glued New York skyline prints - a rented flat, then. He poked his head around the door of the bathroom and, finding nothing out of place, the bedroom, which, despite the hideous choice of floral feature wallpaper behind the headboard, also seemed to be in order. The flashbulb brilliance of a crime-scene photographer drew Arthur into the living room where, slumped against another questionably wallpapered fireplace, was the victim. This being the fifth such body found in the past three weeks, Arthur should have been ready for the chill that spread over him, and yet approaching the man, he had to forcibly repress a shudder. It was as though the warmth was being sucked from the room, the closer you got, the colder it became. The victim looked to be in his twenties, not much younger than Arthur himself, but heavier set, already pallid skin almost blue under the mass of grey cobwebs that clung to his hair and clothes. Sure enough, a kitchen knife was protruding ceremonially from the left side of his chest, soaking his polo shirt black with blood.

He called for Tristan, voice a little shakier than he'd anticipated. "Background?"

Arthur couldn't tear his eyes away from the man on the floor, but he could head the gentle fwip of notebook pages being turned. "Gregory Oliver, 23 years old, warehouse technician out near the Colville Estate. He lived here with his girlfriend up until a few days ago when the neighbours reported fighting from inside the flat, the girlfriend was seen leaving the flat shortly afterwards with a small suitcase and hold-all."

"Have you spoken to the girlfriend?"

Tristan grunted with assent. "She's staying with her mother in Holloway, D.S. Hadleigh is with her now."

Much like the other crime scenes, there was no sign of a struggle or anything out of place for a house that had, until very recently, been well lived in. The furniture was all in place, the TV was on standby, the takeaway boxes and soggy tea bags that missed their mark lay around the bin, and there were still dirty dishes by the sink. Nothing out of place that wouldn't normally be out of place, except -

"That glass." Arthur said suddenly. Gwen and Tristan followed Arthur's eyes to one of the kitchen counters where the broken stem of a dirty wine glass stood surrounded by the shattered remains of its bowl.

"What about it?" Tristan said, dubiously.

"Don't you see anything strange about it."

His brow furrowed and he wrinkled his nose. "I don't see why. It's a wine glass, probably belonged to the missus before she scarpered. If not, a lad's allowed a glass of wine every now and again, it's not all beer and whisky."

Arthur rolled his eyes. "No, that's not what I meant, Hadleigh. Look at it again."

"It's just a broken wine glass."

"Standing upright."

Arthur looked at Gwen, a slightly besotted look in his eyes. She looked back at him and flushed under his gaze. "It's standing upright, and the broken glass is all around it like it shattered exactly where it's standing."

Looking again, Tristan's bemused look only darkened. "I don't see what that has to do with anything."

"There's something strange about this case, so anything that looks odd or feels out of place could have something to do with it. That," He gestured to the shattered glass. "Is odd."

Tristan sighed heavily. "I'll get forensics to take a look at it."

He gave Arthur a heavy, levelled look that less hinted at than slapped him across the face with the fact that it was perhaps time to leave. "Keep me posted."

"I don't take orders from you, King, no matter who your father is."

Arthur rolled his eyes and turned to leave. "It doesn't matter who my father is, this is my case, so yes, you do, and I'd like you to keep me informed on the developments."

Tristan sneered. "Your case? What about your D.C.I.?"

"I was on the scene for the first one, and the second one, so he gave me the case."

A dark, knowing smirk graced Tristan's face as the pieces slotted into place for him. "Your D.C.I. just happened to give you your own serial homicide to oversee as your first case? Yeah, I'm sure that was all down to him. Definitely wouldn't have got a phone call from his Lordship about that one, huh?"

Arthur growled. "I got this position on my own merit, Hadleigh, my father had nothing to do with it!"

"Why don't you ask dear old dad then? See what he says?"

Before he could bite out something spiteful, Arthur felt Gwen touch his arm, a soft suggestion that it was high time they were leaving. He gave Tristan one more venomous look before storming out of the flat in as dignified a manner as his temper would allow.

"Wanker."

Arthur turned sharply to see Gwen, fighting a smile. "What? He is."

Laughing, Arthur nudged her gently. "I didn't say anything."

That was when Arthur saw him. A young man, hidden in the shadows behind a streetlamp, looking directly at the crime scene. It wasn't unusual for civilians to be interested when the police came knocking, particularly not on a Wednesday night with the whole damn forensics team parked up outside, but there was something familiar about this man. Arthur couldn't quite make out what he looked like, only that he was white, with dark hair - brown or black - and somewhere in his early twenties. He startled under Arthur's gaze, his wide eyes catching gold in the yellow of the streetlight, and slunk backwards towards a nearby alleyway. Arthur went to move after him, but found his limbs heavy, like he were wading through water.

"Sir?"

He tried again to run towards the dark alleyway, but managed to take one single staggering step before he felt unable, once again to move.

"Arthur!" He turned around to see Gwen, looking at him as though he'd grown another head. "Are you okay?"

He nodded slowly, the feeling returning to his legs as he contemplated moving backwards instead. "Did you see that man?"

"What man?"

Arthur took several steps backwards at once, all but walking straight into Gwen. "Never mind."

She gave him one final, puzzled look and headed back towards the car. With a sick feeling in his stomach, Arthur replayed his own words to Tristan back in his head: anything that looks odd or feels out of place could have something to do with it. This was certainly odd, stranger even than the spontaneously shattered glass. But what was stranger still, even than the lead-like weight of his legs, was the feeling of familiarity. He had seen that man before, he was sure of it.

 

* * *

 

Arthur spent the next week poring over CCTV footage from all five of the crime scenes. The forensics team had come up with nothing new, no fingerprints on the knife that didn't belong to Gregory or his girlfriend, no suspicious footprints or blood spatters, but what they did find was that the glass had in fact shattered quite spontaneously as though it had come into contact with something very hot or very cold, though there was no evidence of such an occurrence. The glass, despite its mystery, appeared to be a dead end, but Arthur was certain that his own mysterious encounter had to be relevant somehow.

Unlike the rest of his colleagues, Arthur was searching specifically through footage of after the crime, and around the time they themselves arrived at the scene. He watched the small figures dart in and out of the houses, some uniformed, others plain clothed. He saw himself and D.S. Smith, Sgt. Knight with them at the first and second, and Sgt. Strong at the fourth. That's when he spotted him. Almost out of sight - not long after he and D.S. Smith had left, with Sgt. Strong chatting amicably with P.C. Butler - was the same man as before. The footage wasn't as clear as he could have hoped, and there were few distinguishable features he could use to identify the man, but in his gut he knew: this was the same guy. Arthur went back again through the first three crime scenes from every angle he could find, and sure enough, just out of sight of his officers, was the same figure. There wasn't enough for a photofit, even with his own first-hand sighting, but it was the first real lead they had, and Arthur wanted to cheer.

The next morning he handed each of his team a blown up picture of each of the stills he'd manage to find of the man from the security footage around the crime scenes.

"We're looking for this man in connection with all of the murders. He has been at every crime scene, including the one in Islington."

Percy cocked his head to the side, looking carefully at each of the pictures. "How do you know it's the same bloke, guv? He could be anyone."

"I saw him, Sergeant Strong, in person. It's the same man, I'm sure of it."

"You saw him." Leon repeated, somewhat dubiously. "What did he look like?"

Arthur thought back for a moment, the image of the shadowy figure clear in his mind. "He was about my height, slim, with pale skin and dark hair."

Leon raised a brow. "That's not much to go on, sir."

"It's enough to keep your eyes out for." He replied decisively.

Leon and Percy both nodded, Leon's smile gentle, but Percy's broad. "Will do, Arthur - sorry - sir."

Arthur rolled his eyes. It was going to take some getting used to, being their superior. They had been more friends than colleagues when he was D.S., Leon especially, and the transition wasn't exactly easy on any of them. He and Leon had come up through the academy together, they'd served side by side pretty much their entire careers thus far. He'd been the one to console him when a case got away from him, and the one to celebrate with him when they got the bad guys. As tangential as the lead he gave them was, and as dubious as Leon seemed, he trusted Arthur with his life and would follow any lead given, no matter how incidental it seemed to him.

"Right. D.S. Smith and I are going to talk to Gregory Oliver's girlfriend, see what she can tell us about him, and who might have had an interest in killing him." Arthur continued. "Leon, Percy, I want you to ask around, see if any of the neighbours remember seeing our suspect hanging around either before or after the murders."

***

Holloway was a smarter part of Islington than Barnsbury, more white-collar workers and stay at home mums. Despite her puffy, tear-stained face, Bronwen Page was a very pretty girl, younger than Arthur had been expecting, only nineteen, with delicate features and thick waves of blonde hair that fell around her face in neglected disarray. Her mother, Sioned, looked strikingly similar, the same small upturned nose and blonde hair, greyer now than it had been, but her eyes were far more shrewd than her daughter's, taking both detectives in calculatingly.

"We told the other detective everything we knew last week, we haven't anything else to say to you." She said firmly, her accent thick and distinctly Southern Welsh, Swansea perhaps. "So if you'd kindly leave my daughter and me alone, we'd be much appreciative."

"I know this must be traumatic for you both, but there are a few more questions we need to ask your daughter." Gwen said gently. Sioned's demeanour softened minutely at this, but hardened again with a stifled sob from her daughter.

"I told her that boy was trouble, I told her she should have nothing to do with him. Then she runs off to live with him, and he turns up dead not six months later. Leaving him was the best thing she could have done." Sioned said, taking her daughter's hand in her own.

"He loved me, mum." Bronwen sniffled. "And I loved him. You liked him too, before all this. He wasn't trouble, I swear. He got in with the wrong crowd sometimes, but he didn't do nothing to hurt anyone. Not on purpose."

Arthur raised a brow. "Not on purpose?"

Bronwen's tearful brown eyes widened. "I didn't mean that."

"Didn't mean what, Bronwen?" Gwen said, shifting a little closer on the sofa. "That he didn't hurt anyone, or that he didn't do it on purpose?"

"Neither!" She cried desperately. "He didn't hurt anyone ever."

Sioned's eyes narrowed. "He hurt you, love. He's dead now, you don't need to protect him."

Bronwen looked from Arthur and Gwen to her mother and back. "Not like that, he never touched me. He got a lot more argumentative the past few weeks, but he never hit me, mum."

"Do you know why his mood changed so much?" Arthur asked, watching the girl carefully.

She pushed an errant lock of hair behind her ear and sniffed wetly again. "I - I don't know for sure. He went out on the town the other week, didn't come back till it was light, and wouldn't talk about anything that happened. I thought maybe he'd just had a tiff with his mates, lads do that when they get drunk, right?"

"Can you remember the exact day this happened?"

"It was a Saturday, I think they went to watch the footie or something. Saturday about six weeks ago now." Her voice was still shaky, but she seemed sincere about it.

It was a Monday, so a Saturday six weeks ago was... March 3rd. Why did that date seem familiar?

"Which team did he support?" Arthur said, to the bemusement of the three women in the room. He cleared his throat. "To cross-check the games that day."

Bronwen nodded slowly. "He was a West Ham fan, but I bloody hated their colours, so I told him he could only wear his shirt on match day. That's how I knew it was a game, see? He was wearing the shirt, the scarf too."

Arthur nodded along, scribbling down some notes as she talked. Some football hooliganism gone wrong, didn't really fit the profile. There had to be more.

"What about his behaviour changed, Bronwen?" Gwen asked, uncrossing and re-crossing her legs.

Sioned sighed audibly. "She told that D.S. Hadleigh this already. Can't you just share notes?"

Arthur's brow furrowed. "I'd like to hear it from Bronwen myself, Mrs Page."

Bronwen began to tear up again, but stifled her sobs valiantly. "Usually he was so gentle, see. He held my hand, kissed my hair, told me I sang like an angel. After that night he barely spoke to me, flinched every time I tried to touch him, and snapped at me any time I was even the slightest bit loud. It wasn't like him at all."

"Was there anything he said or did that hinted at what could have happened, or why he was acting like that?"

Bronwen shook her head. "Not that I can think of. Though... one of his mates came over one day and they were having an argument by the door. His friend said something about a mistake, something about that kid, but I don't know what kid they were talking about. He started having nightmares too, waking up screaming and that, but when I asked him about it, he told me to mind my own business."

"Which is what she told the lady last week." Her mother interjected pointedly.

Arthur sighed and flipped his notebook shut. "Is there anything else you can remember, anything at all that could give someone reason to kill Gregory?"

"No. Greg was a nice guy. Everyone liked him. He was just like that." She said, finally giving in to her grief and wailing into her mother's shoulder.

As the front door closed behind them, Arthur turned to Gwen. "We need to do some cross-checking, see if any of the other victims were West Ham fans, or fans of ... was it Arsenal they were playing that day?"

Gwen nodded slowly. "I think I remember Elyan complaining about being called out because of it, I can call him and check?"

Arthur nodded. "Good plan. I'll take a wander round some of the local pubs, maybe get Gwaine to help, he knows them better than I do."

Gwen raised a brow, a smirk tugging at her lips. "You and Gwaine going on a pub crawl, because that won't end in disaster."

"It's not a pub crawl, it's a line of enquiry that happens to involve a few pubs. Don't give me that look, Guinevere!"

Gwen's laughter was bright and pealing as bells, but Arthur couldn't enjoy the sound as he felt a shiver run down his spine. He turned to look around, the terraced houses offering a hundred places to watch him from. Frowning, Arthur slipped into the car and drove off, unable to shake the feeling of eyes on his back.

 

* * *

 

P.C. Gwaine Butler was all too happy to be asked to traipse around pubs for an afternoon. It sure beat the beat. Not that he didn't love being on the beat, it was the reason he stayed a P.C. rather than going for anything higher up. He was a man of simple tastes: beer, rugby, and the look of Percy's arms in those sleeveless shirts he liked to wear on Sundays. Being a uniformed policeman on the streets of London was excitement enough for him. He hated paperwork, and he didn't have the patience for being a detective, but he liked working with the C.I.D. when the opportunity arose.

"Remind me again why we're here, Gwaine?" Arthur said sardonically.

"Because you asked me to look around for clues, sir." He replied wryly.

Rolling his eyes, Arthur gestured to the pint glasses sat sweating in front of them. "I know that, I meant why we're sat at the bar drinking on the job."

Gwaine laughed and took another swig of his beer. "Because the best way to find anything out in a pub is to have a few pints and talk to the punters."

Arthur rolled his eyes, but took a dutiful sip of his own beer and settled in to watch the current inhabitants of the Golden Lion go about their days. It was still a little early for lunch, so the pub wasn't as full as it could have been, a few small groups sat in dingy booths, a few leant on the bar, eyes fixed on the match footage playing silently on the screens above their heads. It looked like a replay of some sort, perhaps a highlights reel, or post-match commentary, though it was difficult to read the subtitles from where Arthur was sat. He and Gwaine had set off early to see what they could find from the pubs in the area, but thus far most places had been too empty to talk to more than the skeleton staff, most of whom knew little to nothing about the men they were looking for. The barman here was a young chap, his dark hair faded and shaved with a zig-zag pattern, and he had a laid-back demeanour, though Arthur could tell that he was currently more bored than relaxed. Perhaps he would have better luck with someone whose day would definitely be made more exciting by a police investigation.

"You talk to the punters then, and I'll ask the staff."

Grinning, Gwaine nodded and pushed away from the bar, heading out towards a larger group of men across from them. Arthur drained his small glass and gestured for the bartender to bring him another.

"You sure you don't want a full pint, mate?" The barkeeper said as he pulled another half for him.

Arthur shook his head. "I'm driving later, best not." The barkeeper nodded in understanding, taking the coins from Arthur's hand. "Quick question though, mate. Did you have any footie fans in here a few weeks ago watching the West Ham game?"

The man chewed his lip thoughtfully. "Yeah, I reckon so. We have Sky Sports, so we get loads of folks in to watch the footie any given Saturday."

Arthur sighed, it sounded about right, just like in every other pub they'd been into. Some were less busy than others when it came to football fans, but those that were didn't seem to differentiate between the fans all that much. He doubted that Gregory Oliver and his friends would have made much of an impact.

"You didn't have anything kick off here lately? No punches thrown after a few too many?"

The bartender's eyes narrowed. "Not that I can remember, but like I said, loads of blokes come in, a few of them get rowdy and the landlord may want to kick them out, but that's not really my job."

With that, he turned pointedly to help a customer at the other end of the bar. Arthur sighed again, leaving the sad half-pint sat on the bar and weaved his way through the growing throng to reach Gwaine, who was laughing good-naturedly with the group of men he'd addressed earlier.

"Arthur!" He said brightly as he caught Arthur's eye. "This is my mate, Arthur. Arthur, these are the lads from the Jewell and Sons’ company footie team."

The largest man, in his late forties if Arthur had to guess - thinning hair shaved short and a burgeoning beer gut - barked out a laugh and stuck out a large hand. "Less of a team, more of a bunch of blokes who kick a ball around every now and again."

Arthur shook the proffered hand firmly and raised a questioning brow at Gwaine. "They were just telling about one of their mates, his missus works down at the Swan, said that she had some right trouble a few weeks back. Something about some blokes from out of the area stirring up some trouble, some local kid got knocked around and the gaffer had to throw the lot of them out."

"Out of the area? In what way?" Arthur asked, interest piqued.

The large man scratched his chin thoughtfully. "Posh blokes, bit more like you, guv. Dunno what they were doing down the Swan, but Lisa, Johnny's missus, said they were waving fifties around like fivers. Bloody nuisance with a load of punters watching the game. I reckon that's where the trouble started."

Arthur nodded, this sounded promising. "Thanks, lads. Gwaine, we should get going."

Gwaine looked sadly at his unfinished pint, but put it dutifully back on the bar. "Right you are. Might see you round."  
There was a small chorus of agreements and farewell as they turned to leave, closing the door to the warmth of the pub behind them as they went.

“To the Swan then?” Gwaine said brightly, clapping his hands together decidedly.

***

The Swan was a run-down little pub, about half the size of the Golden Lion and a few streets down, the black paint peeling around the curling gold letters of the sign and the eponymous white swan faded and swinging precariously above the entrance.

The door creaked just as much as the sign as they pushed their way through and into the pub. It was surprisingly busy inside even this late on a Friday afternoon, with men of varying ages leaning on the stools and against the old wooden railing that ran along the bar. There was a musty smell to the place, more than the usual stale beer and body odour. Arthur thought it wasn’t unlike the fusty scent of old libraries: dust, mould, and cracked, brittle leather. The carpet, if you could still call it such, had once been red, but now had the mottled colour of rotting leaves, and the glass in the windows looked as though it hadn’t been cleaned since the turn of the millennium. A hush descended over the place as a dozen eyes fixed themselves on the newcomers. Arthur felt the hair on the back of his neck prickle and stand on end as he made his way over to the bar.

“I don’t think we’ll get by on inconspicuous here, mate.” Gwaine whispered.

Arthur was loathe to agree, but already they stuck out like a sore thumb. He didn’t know why, but he got the impression they all knew he was a copper on sight. Not like in the other pubs, not just because he looked like a posh bloke who’d never see a job centre in his life, more that there was an instinctual feeling of not-belonging about them.

“Wait outside for me. I’ll shout if I need back-up.” Arthur said, his voice low.

Gwaine nodded and headed back out the way he’d come, leaving Arthur the sole recipient of the sea of distrustful stares.  
The bartender was an older man, large and bearded, and eyeing them up as much as the patrons. “Can I help you, officer?” He said gruffly.

Inconspicuous definitely out of the window then, Arthur thought with a sigh. “I’m here about an incident that may have occurred a few weeks ago.”

The man raised a brow. “You’re here about Mary’s boy?”

Arthur paused. If this involved people well-known around the patrons, things sometimes had a tendency to get messy where inquiries were concerned. “Perhaps we’d better take this somewhere more private.”

“Everyone here misses that boy. He’s a good lad, and if anything’s happened to him, we’d all like to know.”

“Boy?” Singular. Young. Even an older man like the proprietor would be unlikely to call a man like Gregory Oliver - or any of the other victims - a boy, which rather suggested there was something else going on that Arthur hadn’t been expecting.

“Tom. Tom Collins.” The barman repeated, his expression darkening. “His mother’s been going spare without him, filed a police report straight after he disappeared, but your lot have done sod all for weeks.”

Arthur bristled at the accusation. “This is London, the force is spread thin as it is, we’re doing our best, I can assure you.”

The man’s laugh was a bitter bark. “If this is your best, I pity the people of your London.”

“Look,” Arthur bit back. “Just answer my questions and I’ll get out of your hair.”

The man shrugged and continued drying the glasses on the counter.  
Arthur took out his notebook and flipped it open purposefully. “Did you have any trouble in here a few weeks ago, maybe the day of the West Ham game?”

“We don’t have many football fans in here, it’s more for the old boys than the young lads these days. Besides, we don’t have a television.”  
Glancing around, Arthur saw that he was telling the truth, the fusty old bar didn’t have a television, or even so much as a pool table.

“Right, but what about later on that night, did anything else seem strange to you? A group of young men you wouldn’t have expected turn up? Perhaps wealthy young men?”

The barman’s glower returned with a vengeance. “We had a group of lads in here acting like prats a few weeks back, for sure. It was them who were bothering young Tom. He could stand up for himself, mind, quickest wit of any boy I’ve ever met, but there were too many of them just for him. He’s a slight boy, Tom, and couldn’t have taken one of them on his own. I kicked them all out of course, but that was the last time I saw any of them, Tom included.”

“You think they could have had something to do with Tom’s disappearance?”

“I wouldn’t bet my life on it, but I got a feeling.”

“Can you give me a description of them?”

The man shrugged. “I don’t remember much about them individually. Maybe five of them in total, all white, can’t have been much more than twenty, any of them. They were dressed … how’d you call it … smart casual, pastel shirts and dark jeans that cost more money than they’re worth, you know.”

“Nothing more specific?”

“Two of them had blonde hair, the rest had brown. They looked like they played sport.”

“Right,” Arthur said, jotting everything down that he could. “Anything else you can tell me about that night?”

“Are you going to use that information to find young Tom?”

“What we use this information for is police business.” Arthur said shortly.

The barman looked less than impressed. “Then I don’t think I have anything more to say to you, and I’d appreciate it if you stopped disrupting my customers.”

Arthur’s patience had grown thin and he felt a low growl build in his throat. “People are being killed!” He snapped. “I’m trying my best to catch the killer before any more innocents die.”

The barman’s watery gaze looked him up and down distastefully. “What makes you think these men were innocent?”

Arthur felt a cold, sick shiver trickle down his spine, and felt as though he’d be violently sick if he spent another moment inside the pub. He turned on his heel and all but ran back out through the door, gulping in the cold, fresh air as he left the unnaturally claustrophobic bar.  
He startled as a hand fell on his shoulder, and looked up to see Gwaine’s concerned face.

“Everything okay, guv?”

Arthur nodded, but there was a strange, claggy taste in his mouth, metallic and unpleasant.

"Come on, sir, we’ve already worked overtime and Percy says that he and Leon are down the local. If you can stand another couple of pints, off duty this time."

Arthur looked back at the pub, the swan on the sign creaking ominously. He repressed a shudder. “I don’t know if I should.”

"Gwen'll be there." Gwaine added, a cheeky glint in his eye, and Arthur groaned.

"You know encouraging it isn't helping anything."

Gwaine frowned. "Why not? She likes you, and you're obviously smitten with her."

"I'm her superior."

"Only just."

Whatever this was with Gwen, the flirtatious glances, the casual touches, it was just not going to happen. It couldn't. His father wouldn't allow it, no matter how badly he wanted it. A mixed race girl from a working-class background was possibly the worst choice Arthur could have made in his eyes. The only thing worse would have been a guy. Commissioner King's golden son a queer? His father had beaten that out of him when he was fifteen, or at least he thought he had. He'd end up marrying someone his sister picked out from her gaggle of political socialites, they'd have 2.5 kids, he'd start to work longer hours, she'd turn to a cocktail of prescription pills and gin, then they'd end up getting a divorce after fifteen years and he'd see the kids every other weekend. That's what people expected. He wanted more than that, but no one outside of the job really understood what it was like. You couldn't switch off, you brought the dead home with you, you were always in an unbalanced threesome with the job. Gwen was perfect for him - beautiful, witty, kind, and just as deep in the job as he was - but there was always something holding him back. Maybe he should stop blaming it on his father or the job and just take the blame himself for once.

“Fine.”

Gwaine grinned brightly.

***

The local, as Gwaine called it, wasn’t really very local at all, it was just the closest pub to Gwaine and Percy’s flat, arguably the most social of the team, but not that close to anyone else.

The two of them arrived to find everyone else had already started without them. Percy, well over six feet tall, with a shock of blonde hair and the kindest face Arthur had known a person to have, waved them over as though there were any doubt as to where their group was sat. He wrapped a large, muscular arm around Gwaine’s waist and pressed a kiss to his forehead as Arthur gave an awkward wave to the table.

“Alright, Arthur.” Young Gary said with a warm smile. “Glad you could make it. I wasn’t sure Gwaine wasn’t bullshitting when he said you’d agreed to come.”

Leon swatted the boy on the back of the head but he continued to grin all the same.

“We’ll get him on the Wednesday night quiz team in no time.” Gwen said with a wry smile.

Arthur raised a brow, fairly certain he was being teased, and sat down next to her, the dregs of unsettling dread from the Swan finally sliding from his shoulders as he did.

Arthur had never thought of himself as part of the team outside of the station. He’d been close to Leon, sure enough, but there had always been a distance between him and the others. Gwaine and Percy were close not just as lovers but as friends, Gary was new but had been thoroughly adopted by the rest of the team, Gwen in particular. She and her brother were thick as thieves, despite him defecting to the Islington branch, and since Arthur’s promotion the distance between him and an already tight-knit group seemed to grow only larger. This distance, however, appeared to close fairly rapidly when supplied with enough alcohol and access to an old jukebox with some truly terrible old tunes stashed away that only Gwaine seemed to know how to access.

This was how - and Arthur could only really speculate because his actual memories of the rest of the night had been doused in beer and two rounds of jagerbombs - he found himself fumbling with the buttons on Gwen’s blouse in the back of a black cab, unwilling to break the desperate kissing that was sure to be giving their poor driver some grief. He paid the cabbie what they owed and tripped over his own feet falling after Gwen into her flat. They made it upstairs by some miracle, hands trembling over feverish skin. He collapsed backwards onto her bed while she straddled him in heated desperation and Arthur all but blacked out for a moment. He gripped her thighs, drowning in the sensation of it all as they fell into a gasping rhythm. She touched herself as he thrust upwards into her, and he came with her pleasure clenching and pulsating around him.

Afterwards they lay there in silence for a while, not touching, not holding one another like most people would. Arthur just stared at the ceiling. It was the kind of ceiling that hadn’t been re-plastered since the late 80s, the texture still swirled and stippled in the offensive fashion of the time. He’d never understood why anyone would ruin a perfectly good ceiling with difficult to clean, and frankly unsightly decoration like that. It struck him that he probably shouldn’t be thinking about plastering while lying naked next to the woman he’d just been having sex with. The woman he’d been pining over for years, but that he now couldn’t bear to look at. Sighing heavily, he turned on his side and pressed a gentle kiss to Gwen’s bare shoulder, his eyes not drifting any higher than her collarbone. She sighed in return and sat up, pulling her knees up to her chest protectively. Arthur propped himself up on his elbows, and let the silence fall over them again.

When he finally looked up, Arthur found Gwen studying his face so intently he could all but hear the thoughts hurtling through her mind. He opened his mouth to speak but she got in first.

"This was a mistake." Arthur balked, sobriety crashing into him as Gwen clapped a hand over her mouth. "I didn't mean it like that, I just meant ... oh, Arthur, you know that I want this, but we're both so focused on the job. Tonight was the first time you've done anything social since you got D.I. and even then I could tell your mind was on the case the whole time.”

"Gwen I-"

"No, Arthur, that came out wrong again." She chewed her lip, pushing some errant curls out of her face in a way that made Arthur ache with the desire to run his own fingers through them. "What I mean is that it's not a bad thing, that you can't switch off. You're dedicated, and you're so damn good at what you do, but so am I. I want what you have, Arthur. I want to be D.I., then I want to be D.C.I. and I want to get there on my own."

It dawned on Arthur suddenly exactly what she meant. "You don't want anyone to think you fucked your way to a promotion."

Gwen's guilty look told him everything he needed to know. "I didn't mean it quite like that. I just don't want anyone to think that I've been given special treatment."

A sick feeling settled in Arthur's gut. "Like me."

"You know I don't think that." She said softly, her hand coming up to cup his cheek affectionately. "Did I not just tell you, you're a damn good detective, a King or otherwise. Hadleigh had it tough, but he has no right to accuse you of being your father's pawn. You could have taken the job in Chelsea, lived under his thumb, done what he and your sister told you, but you didn't. You applied for the job in Hackney, and you got it off your own back. You could have walked in there with a prosthetic nose and a false name and they'd have given you that job as D.S. and you know it."

Arthur leant into her hand and closed his eyes. For a moment he could imagine it, he and Gwen, married with a couple of dogs, Vizslas like his mum's. They'd work together until Gwen got promoted to another division, then they'd hardly see each other, but they'd go on walking holidays to the Peak District and forget that London even existed. Gwen would fall pregnant entirely by accident, their contraceptives would fail at exactly the wrong time - the perfect storm - but they'd both be over the moon. She'd work until she physically couldn't any more, then they'd both take some time off to be with the baby for the first couple of months, but they'd be itching to go back to the job. And therein lay the problem for both of them. They were married to the job. The trips to the Peak District would be few and far between. The dogs would spend more time in the house than out of it. The baby would know their child-minder better than their parents. It was a nice dream, but that's all it was, a dream.

"I understand."

"I know you do." She said, her smile sad and her gaze watery. "I love you, Arthur."

Arthur laughed a short, sharp laugh, feeling a few hot tears spilling down his cheeks. "I know you do."

They lay in each other's arms for a while, until their breathing slowed and they both slipped into bittersweet dreams of rainy hills and windswept kisses.

***

Arthur woke suddenly, the dawn light barely reaching up above the horizon, painting the April sky a watery watchet blue. Gwen was sleeping soundly next to him, and he felt a pang of guilt and longing, watching her chest rise and fall, but there was something else that had woken him. There was a feeling buzzing under his skin that sent his blood pounding through his veins, something that he couldn't shake. It felt like he was being watched.

He sat up gently, trying his best not to disturb Gwen, and padded over to the window, drawing back the linen curtains to look out over the sleeping city.

Stood outside, in a shadow too long and too dark to be natural, was a figure. Whoever it was was shrouded in darkness, the outline of their slight figure barely visible in the gloom, but with a gleam like cats' eyes were two pinpricks of liquid amber. Arthur stared at the pools of golden light and the pools stared back. It felt like an eternity, not a breath or a blink, just the darkness and the two pools of light. Then, as quickly as they had appeared, the lights, the shadow and the figure vanished, and Arthur felt a rush of air flood his lungs. For a moment, the only sounds were the gentle ticks of Gwen’s alarm clock, her soft, sleepy sighs, and Arthur’s own ragged breathing. Dropping the curtain, he made his way back to the bed shakily. He slept dreamlessly.

 

* * *

 

 

"Leon owes me fifty quid." Gwaine grinned smugly when Arthur arrived at the station on Monday.

Leon shot him an appalled look and took his arm, leading him into Arthur’s own office. "Are you kidding? You slept with Gwen?"

Arthur rolled his eyes, trying not to let the sting of their midnight conversation show on his face. "Yes, Leon. We were drunk and got carried away, but it's not going to happen again."

His brow furrowed. "So you're not in a relationship?" Arthur shook his head. "That doesn't make it any better, you know. You're her boss. The D.C.I. is going to have a fit!"

"If Gwaine would keep his mouth shut, the D.C.I. doesn't have to find out. It’s not a big deal." Arthur muttered angrily.

"I know you have ... feelings for her. Are you sure you can just let it go?" Leon asked gently.

Arthur looked at his best friend carefully. He'd known Leon for nearly ten years, there was no lying to him. He sighed heavily and shook his head. "No, I'm not sure, but she is. She wants a career, wants to be a D.C.I. one day, and she doesn't want anyone to think that she did anything but her best damn job to achieve that. She doesn't want anyone to think she doesn't deserve it."

Leon's gaze was all too knowing, the downward turn of his lips too sympathetic. "Okay, Arthur." He squeezed his arm gently, the corner of his mouth twitching up as he added, "Sir."

Arthur's smile was wan, but Leon patted him on the arm a couple of times and left him to his morning's work, closing the door behind him. Even through the door Arthur could hear Leon smack Gwaine over the head with his latest report, and Arthur's smile grew a little warmer.

He spent most of the morning on paperwork, the most unfortunate part of the job, and reviewing the case files for all five victims again. It was just after midday when his phone rang, shrill bells pealing at him as he swore back at it. He answered in fumblingly and held the phone to his ear with a shrug of his shoulder. "D.I. King speaking."

"Arthur."

Arthur stiffened. "Father. It's not like you to call."

"Is it not normal for a father to ask after his son's well-being?" His father replied smoothly.

It was a loaded question, and his father knew it as well as he did. Any ordinary father would call his son once a week, perhaps, to chat about the weather or the footie, but Uther was different. Uther was too important for small-talk. He was too important for football matches. Too important for birthday parties. Certainly too important for a midweek catch-up on his lunch-break, especially since he never took one.

"Of course." Arthur bit out. "How are you?"

"I'm well enough."

Arthur swallowed a bitter retort, managing as polite an enquiry as possible. "How's Scotland Yard?"

"Scotland Yard is running as smoothly as it ever is," His father replied nonchalantly. "Despite being bombarded by homeless doomsday enthusiasts and an insane woman, screaming to high hell about her missing son. As if the London Met has nothing more important to do than read their horoscopes or look for some brat who probably just got sick of his mother's nagging and simply left of his own damn volition. I had to have her forcibly removed the other week." Uther was silent for a moment, seemingly waiting for a noise of assent, or perhaps even a cold, unfeeling chuckle over a distraught mother. Arthur wouldn't give him the satisfaction. "However, I had called with a purpose. It's been weeks since you were assigned that serial homicide, I'm disappointed that you haven't solved it yet."

Arthur felt the acrid taste of decades of resentment stale on his tongue. "We've got some strong leads."

"You had better. Don't waste this opportunity, it would be an embarrassment if you were to fail." His father replied, voice dripping with discontent.

Pausing, Arthur's frown deepened. "How do you know about the case, father? We haven't spoken since I got the promotion."

He could hear the smirk in his father's voice as he spoke. "I had a word with that D.C.I. of yours a few weeks back."

Arthur wanted to be sick. Of course, Tristan had been right, his father had been the reason he got the case. How could he have been so stupid as to think he'd got it off his own back. "Father." He said tersely. "Please tell me you didn't force him to give me this case."

Uther's laughter was curt and jarring. "I didn't force anyone to do anything, Arthur, but what's the point in being the Commissioner's son if you don't get some perks, hmm?"

The anger that had been bubbling away under his skin seethed and burned. "What did I say about doing that, father? How am I supposed to achieve anything if you're pulling the fucking strings? I am a bloody good detective and I can do my job just fine without you interfering!"

The line was dead for a moment longer than Arthur had expected, the silence so tense that he had to surreptitiously check that his father hadn't hung up. When Uther spoke again, Arthur wished he had. "Watch your tongue with me, boy. I don't know who you think you are, but you got where you are in life because of me, and you would be nothing without the King name. You have already thrown it back in my face once before, turning down the job in Chelsea, you ungrateful child. Working in that hovel of a station in Hackney instead, like some common pleb." Arthur could practically feel the spittle as his father spat at him venomously. "You'll do this job properly and you'll bloody thank me for it, you hear me, Arthur?"

Arthur shut down, cold and distant. "Of course, sir."

Uther was silent again for a second, spitting out one final, spiteful syllable before ending the call. "Good."

Arthur was fuming, red hot embarrassment seeping into his skin. Hadleigh had been right, and so had his father. He hadn't got the case on merit, he'd had it handed to him because his dear old dad had forced his boss' hand. Even then he hadn't got anywhere with it, the only suspect they had was a grainy picture of a generic man and some kind of hallucination he'd had from stress or lack of sleep. He was a miserable failure even with the silver spoon shoved so far down his gullet he couldn't hack it up. He slammed his fist against the desk with a shout.

There was a knock at the door. He ignored it purposefully.

Then a second knock.

"Not now." He growled.

The door opened a crack and Gwen's face appeared.

"Arthur?" She said apprehensively.

"Can it wait, Gwen?" He said tersely, but she shook her head.

"Arthur, you're going to want to hear this." Gwen said purposefully, her face grave. "It's Bronwen Page."

"What about her?"

Gwen couldn't meet his eyes, swallowing thickly before she spoke again. "She's dead."

Arthur stilled, the anger draining out of him. "What?"

"Her mother found her this morning, she must have been killed last night. Same M.O. as our perp."

He sank into his chair, deflated. "That doesn't make any sense. Why would the perp suddenly go after a woman? It was all young men before this."

"I don't know. Maybe she knew more than she was letting on."

"You think the perp was tying off loose ends?" He said, raising a brow.

"Maybe? I don't know Arthur, but her mum is distraught."

Arthur sighed heavily and scrubbed a hand over his face. He was damn tired, and more and more people were dying on his watch. He had to solve this, and quickly.

"Right, we'd better go over there. Give Price a nudge for me, tell him to get his jacket, he's coming on this one too."

She smiled softly and nodded. Gary Price was a good lad, new to the force, only been a P.C. for a couple of years, but Arthur could tell from the get-go that he was meant to be a detective. He'd taken him under his wing, so to speak, and his keen eye was only sharpening under his instruction, and Arthur needed fresh eyes on this. He didn't understand why the perp would change for the sixth victim, it just didn't make any sense. Unless Gwen was right and Bronwen hadn't been as forthcoming with them as she had seemed.

***

There was a sense of foreboding stepping into Sioned Page's house, the blue lights giving the formerly warm and welcoming home a cold, other-worldly glow. In the centre of the living room was a body, strangely more serene than the others, as if placed there with more care and attention. Her hair had fallen around her face like a golden halo on the hardwood floor, her hands resting on the bloody mess of her ruined nightgown in silent prayer, draped in a shroud of cobwebs. Seeing Bronwen lying there so peacefully, her mother's kitchen knife sticking out from between her ribs, was somehow more disconcerting than any of the other five victims Arthur had seen. It wasn't that she was a woman, though that certainly added an uncomfortable fairytale edge to the horrifying picture, it was that he had been talking to her only days before. She was nineteen years old.

Arthur heard the short, sharp intake of breath as Gary entered the room behind him. He turned around to see the boy, and he really did seem a boy to Arthur, not long off probation and only twenty-two years old, staring at the girl on the floor with wide eyes. It took him no more than a second to regain his composure, his pale eyes focused and calculating.

"Is this what the others looked like?" He asked quietly.

Arthur nodded. "Pretty much. What do you see?"

Gary considered the girl. "Female, early twenties at most, knife wound to the chest appears to be the cause of death, but there doesn't seem to have been any sign of a struggle. Maybe she was drugged?"

"Good assumption. Though, if our prior victims are anything to go by, the toxicology will come back clean."

"Asphyxiation, then? Suffocated until she passed out, but before she died, stabbed, then ... placed?" He said, the query obvious and left quite deliberately hanging.

Swallowing the discomfort lodged in Arthur’s throat, he took in the scene in front of him with a critical eye. It was true, something here was different to the others. It didn't feel as cold in the room as it had done in Gregory's flat, and the sickening panic that wound its way tightly around his gut was lesser here than at any of the other crime scenes. "The others were slumped, like they'd fallen asleep and never woken up, but you're right, she looks like she's been arranged into a more aesthetically pleasing position."

Gary's nose wrinkled in disgust. "Why would the perp do that? Was it because the others were men, but she was a girl, and a young one at that?" If he was honest, Arthur had no idea. "Maybe this is a clue to the motives. Do you think it was gender related? Like, the others were men who had done something to offend the perp, but she was innocent?"

The light bulb in Arthur's mind flickered. "This was an apology." He muttered. "She was placed to look angelic, because she wasn't supposed to die. The killer felt some sort of guilt with her that she didn't feel with the others. The question is, why?"

As he circled the room he noted the usual lack of footprints or blood splatters, but as he turned the corner what caught his eye was the kitchen. The living room and kitchen were open to one another, separated by a small peninsula housing the sink and draining board. By the sink, just like at Gregory's, were three jagged wine glass stems, their feet immersed in glittering shards of what had once been their bowls. This was not a coincidence, Arthur was sure of it, the glasses had to be linked. Both bodies were found within a few feet of the glasses, that was sure, but he had found no evidence of broken glass near any of the other four bodies, so what made these last two so special?  
  
"Sir?" Arthur was torn from his contemplation to find Gwen by the doorway. "We should speak to Mrs Page now."  
  
Arthur nodded, and he and Gary followed Gwen through to the kitchen where Sioned was sat, shaking quietly, and next to her a smartly dressed woman with lank blonde hair and long face who glared daggers at him as he sat down across from them. Isolde Hadleigh was every bit as acerbic as her husband, possibly more so, but usually she had a soft spot for him. He had saved her life once, and she had been the only thing holding the cases together when Tristan had been at his most aggressive. Now, however, he had let a teenage girl die, and her regard for him appeared to have cooled somewhat.  
  
"Mrs Page, Sioned, I am so sorry for your loss." He said quietly.  
  
"This was how you found him too." She said, her voice cracked and broken from what must have been hours of screaming and sobbing. "It's the same guy, right?"  
  
Arthur nodded slowly and Sioned shuddered out a shaky breath. "We need to know if there was anything that she told you that she kept from us. Anything that could have put her in danger."  
  
Sioned shook her head. "She was such a fool in love, just like I was. Her father was a bastard, you know. He ran off with his bloody secretary like the cliche that he was. I stayed with him, even though I knew what he was doing, then he just ups and fucking leaves. The coward."  
  
Glancing over at Isolde he saw the pained look that shadowed her face as her eyes flitted over Sioned's own mournful expression. There was something about this case that had touched her deeper than the ones they'd faced before. This was personal to her, and Arthur wanted to know why.  
  
"She lied for him." Sioned said suddenly. "To you - to the police, when they came round."  
  
Arthur frowned. "There were no records of anyone having spoken to Bronwen or Gregory, unless there's something myself and the Bethnal Green force aren't privy to?"  
  
Isolde gave him a scolding look. "We gave your team all of the necessary information for this case."  
  
"So you never interviewed Bronwen?"  
  
Isolde shook her head. Sioned looked between them, stricken. "B-but she told me a uniformed officer turned up at her door a few days af-afterwards, asking her something about a bar fight, and a missing boy?"  
  
Arthur raised a brow. "Uniformed? Did Bronwen say what she looked like?"  
  
"Young, maybe early thirties, Welsh, which was strange, there aren't that many of us round here, she definitely remembered that." Sioned said, tucking her hair behind her ear in a gesture that was painfully reminiscent of her daughter. "Dark hair, dark eyes, very forceful from what little Bronwen said."  
  
Arthur ran through all of the Welsh female officers he knew in the area, none of whom matched the description. "What do you mean by forceful?"  
  
"She got very angry with her, demanding that she tell the truth about where Greg was that night he went AWOL. Bronwen lied and said that he was with her the whole night, but something happened that made that officer so angry that she threatened to beat my little girl. She was scared shitless, but she couldn't lodge a complaint, she'd lied to the police, how could she? She was scared though, and so was Greg. They started fighting almost every night, she was over here more in the last few weeks than she had been since she first moved out. I thought it was a godsend, her precious boyfriend turning out to be a bastard like her father." She looked up at Arthur pleadingly. "You're probably thinking I'm a horrible mother, aren't you? To wish an unhappy relationship on my daughter, but she's all I had, you see? I wanted her to go to uni, to get a good job, to settle down with a man who would look after her, not some footie lout who worked in a warehouse. She deserved better than him."  
  
Arthur frowned. "Did he tell her what really happened that night? Did she tell you?"  
  
Sioned sobbed once and shook her head. "If she had, I'd tell you, I swear I would. Whatever it was, that's why she died. Oh, Jesus..."  
  
With that she broke down again, leaning heavily on Isolde who rubbed her back in slow, comforting circles. The look she gave him was sharp, but less so than when he'd arrived. He turned to Gwen as he was leaving, placing a hand on her arm. "Could you do some follow up? Price can assist, but I think D.S. Hadleigh may take your input more readily than mine."

Nodding, Gwen moved to take his place in the kitchen, and with a final look of grim farewell to Gary and Isolde, Arthur left.

***

In the car he rested his forehead against the cool plastic of the steering wheel and let out a keen of grief and frustration. He had let her down, he hadn't found her boyfriend's killer, and now she was dead too. Even the killer knew she was innocent, and he's let her die on his watch, and he had barely a handful of leads to show for it. He was a fucking disgrace of a detective. He pressed the heel of his hand to his eyes and wiped away the wetness there, then looked back to the house and froze.

There, standing on the corner of the road, watching Sioned Page's house solemnly, was the man. He was once again sheathed in shadow, but the more Arthur looked at it, the more he realised that it was less like the man was standing in the shadows, and more that the shadows were following the man around. The light shifted almost imperceptibly with every slight movement, like a cloak in the breeze. Careful not to alert him to his presence, Arthur wound down the window and took out his phone. He tried to snap a picture of the man, but every time he looked at the camera roll the image was too dark to make anything out. Swearing under his breath, Arthur tried again to get a good look at the man. All he could see was what he had seen that Wednesday night, pale skin against dark hair, all distinguishing features hidden by the strange, shifting shadows. The man seemed to be turning to leave, but Arthur wouldn't let him disappear, not this time.

"Hey! You!" Arthur shouted, catching the man by surprise. "Come back here!" He looked back briefly before bolting, running full kilter down the road.

"No you don’t," Arthur muttered as he put the car into gear and sped off after him. "Not this time."

The man was fast, running faster than Arthur could keeo up with him, but the car was more than a match for him. He turned off at the next road, and Arthur swung the car around the corner with a screech of wheels. While he didn't know Holloway as well as he knew his own patch, he had an idea of how to catch this guy, if only he'd take the wrong turning. The man seemed to be tiring, head whipping round for a chance to elude his pursuer. The moment he turned in the small alleyway to their left Arthur grinned. He’d done exactly what he’d hoped he would. Parking the car on the curb and jumping out, Arthur followed the man between the buildings. Sure enough, the man was paused, as though he were running through his meagre options, at the end of the street, closed off on all sides by ten-foot walls and a menacing, spiralled barbed wire fence.  
Arthur slowed to a stop in front of the man, who was taller in person than he had seemed from afar. He was slender, lithe, young, and obviously in some distress at being cornered, not at all like the kind of suspect they had in mind. Maybe they’d got the profile wrong, or maybe this wasn’t who they were looking for.

"Police! Stop right there." He called out. "Running from a crime scene, not a smart move."

The man said nothing, watching him warily. There was something about him that Arthur couldn't quite put his finger on. Perhaps it was his facial features, his eyes and ears just a little too big for his face, which itself was the sort you'd usually expect to find painted with a comically lopsided smile. Instead, he looked like a rabbit caught in a snare.

"Who are you?" Arthur demanded.

"Nobody." The man replied slowly, looking him up and down before eyeing their surroundings with trepidation.

"You’re not nobody." Arthur pressed. "You have been at every crime scene. Either you’re the killer, or you know a lot more about this than you’re letting on."

The man laughed a short, sharp, bitter laugh and gave Arthur a long-suffering look. "Trust me, I know a lot more than your tiny brain could fathom."

Arthur raised a brow. "You really think you’re in a position to be making smart remarks? I could arrest you right here, I have reasonable cause, and you have yet to supply me with any kind of alibi."

"You could arrest me, Inspector, but I doubt you’d get far with me." He scoffed, his demeanour changing from scared to surprisingly cocksure.

"Was that a threat?"

The man shook his head and smiled, though there was little warmth in it. "No, just a warning. Leave this alone, there’s more going on here than you can handle."

"How do you know what I can handle?" He shot back.

"Since you don’t already know what’s going on, I know you couldn’t handle it if you found out the truth."

"Right, I’ve had enough of this," Arthur said, reaching for the handcuffs on his belt. "I am arresting you for obstruction of justice and threatening a police officer. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Do you understand?"

The man simply laughed again, his eyes glinting gold in the low light. With a sudden wail his patrol car lit up behind him, siren blaring at full volume in the small side street, something that should have been impossible unless someone was in the car itself.

"What the f–"

He turned around to find the man gone, as if he had never been there in the first place. Arthur took a step back, before spinning around, searching desperately for the man. He hadn’t seen him slip away, or heard anything above the scream of his siren. There was nowhere to go, and yet somehow the man had disappeared without a trace. Panicked he scrambled for his keys to turn lights and the noise off, but without the disturbance, the night was eerily quiet and unnervingly still. He repressed a shudder. Something seriously strange was going on. He had just witnessed something he couldn’t explain, and he was going to get to the bottom of it if it was the last thing he did.


End file.
